The Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute: linking research to clinical care.

Over the past 50 years the expansion and advances in neuroscience have been astonishing. The Society for Neuroscience illustrates this growth. It is the world’s largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. In 1969 it had 500 members. Today it has almost 42,000 and its annual meeting attracts over 30,000 researchers. This tremendous growth in research has led to discoveries that have fundamentally changed our understanding of the nervous system. We are gaining an ever-more sophisticated understanding of the functioning of neurons through the development of advanced imaging technologies in combination with genetic manipulations, and the human genome project is providing new insights about diseases and disorders of the nervous system. Advances in brain imaging technologies, such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), have revolutionized the ways that we diagnose disorders of the nervous system and they are showing, on a global scale, how information is processed in the brain. At the same time researchers are developing devices, like electrodes for deep brain stimulation and implantable multi-electrode arrays that take advantage of progress in computational neuroscience and computer science to better diagnose and treat a variety of neurological disorders, ranging from depression to epilepsy to Parkinson’s disease and paralysis. In 2013 the White House announced a new national initiative in neuroscience – BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). It is targeted at one of the great mysteries of the brain – how networks of neurons interact to create sensations, movements and thoughts. It will lead to even more breakthroughs in our understanding of how populations of neurons work together normally and how changes in network interplay lead to symptoms associated with neurological and psychiatric disease. These recent and anticipated future advances are creating opportunities for devising new treatments for diseases of the brain and nervous system that are greater than at any time in history.